New York Giants: No tank for Big Blue just yet

Fans of the New York Giants are thinking about next year’s draft. The Big Blue squad, meanwhile, has the playoffs, not a tank, on the mind.

NFL teams don’t tank. Believe whatever you will about what is happening with the Oakland Raiders this fall. Decisions made by Jon Gruden aren’t preventing guys still on the roster from competing. On Nov. 11, the Raiders, the worst team in the NFL after the second full weekend of the current month, trailed the 7-2 Los Angeles Chargers by a touchdown at halftime. Don’t think those Oakland players weren’t battling despite being nowhere near the playoff hunt.

The 2018 New York Giants lost seven of their first eight heading into Monday night’s showdown with the San Francisco 49ers, and those Big Blue players left little doubt they wanted to win coming off the Bye and also that they’re confident they have a run left in them.

After the victory over the Niners, coach Pat Shurmur spoke with his squad about the team’s current “eight-game season.” Wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. “left so much out on the field” and is eying running the table.

This isn’t the NBA, where a team such as the 2018-19 Cleveland Cavaliers is better off losing as many of 82 contests as possible, and where fans of that franchise are hoping before Thanksgiving that the club finishes with the worst record in the Association. The NFL provides athletes with no more than 16 guaranteed games to shine, and every one of those outings is a war. Organizations fire coaches of teams that lay down before the holiday season.

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Do players on eliminated teams take early vacations and phone performances in by late December when matters are decided? Of course. They’re humans. Talk with retired pros about the matter off the record, and they’ll admit that guys count practices and games down on invisible calendars before Christmas Eve arrives when they see the writing on the wall and understand there’s nothing left to chase.

Watch post-game videos, and listen to interviews given by Giants stars from late Monday night after many of you tapped out and headed to bed. Beckham wants to win. Shepard doesn’t care about where Big Blue will or won’t pick in next year’s NFL Draft.

Eli Manning doesn’t have a foot into retirement even though his prime and best days are in the rear view mirror. By the time you read this sentence, they’ll have already begun planning for an upcoming home game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Don’t get it twisted, even if you’re a Giants fan who wants to dream of an eight-game winning streak. This is still a bad football team. One positive result doesn’t change that. Eventually, Kyle Lauletta will start in place of Manning so that Shurmur and others can get a look at him ahead of the upcoming offseason. Breakdowns of to-be rookie signal-callers are penciled-in on schedules.

The argument for giving Lauletta the start with the help of extra preparation following a Bye made sense regardless of certain driving habits he needs to eliminate. Shurmur didn’t go that route, and that decision changes the conversation about Manning’s short-term future.

Does it really matter if Shurmur waits until the Giants suffer an eighth or ninth loss of the campaign to insert the rookie into the lineup? It does only if New York keeps winning until the Week 14 divisional contest versus the Washington Redskins.

Losing can be contagious for a franchise. The Cleveland Browns have been an example of that since the start of the 2015 season. Beckham, Shepard, tight end Evan Engram, first-year running back Saquon Barkley and other young New York players understandably want to experience a few more Victory Mondays before the sun sets on December 31.

Fans can watch highlights of Justin Herbert and speculate about the Giants signing Teddy Bridgewater next March all they want. The men in the locker room are focused on beating Tampa Bay. If they accomplish that goal, they’ll look to avenge a humiliating loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on November 25.

These Giants haven’t quit on their coaches or their teammates. That’s a good sign, even if those obsessed with mock drafts believe differently today.